OSS Test & Automation Engineer
AST SpaceMobile · Lanham, MD
- Level
- Engineer
- Team
- Controls
- Degree
- Required (or equivalent experience)
- Experience asked
- 3+ years
- Industry
- Aerospace & defense
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
An engineer-level controls role at AST SpaceMobile (aerospace & defense) in Lanham, MD. Design, implement, and maintain automated test suites that validate automation workflows under both nominal and fault/edge-case conditions.
- They ask for
- 3+ years · degree required (or equivalent experience)
- Tools it names
- Root cause, Robotics, Automation, Tooling
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026
Controls Engineer roles in Maryland: typical posted base $91k–$145k.
Median of the low and high ends of 6 live postings that list pay, out of 10 controls engineer openings in Maryland, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
Maryland plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 9 other live controls postings in Maryland.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- Less than usual (3+ vs 5+)
Typical $91k–$145k, from 6 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Automation 50%
- ✓ Python 30%
- Team leadership 30%
- ✓ Tooling 20%
- PLC 20%
- Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 20%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Controls team at AST SpaceMobile
Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.
- 2
Send a short, curious note
One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.
- 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
Apply with someone vouching for you
If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: AST SpaceMobile in Lanham
3 other open roles at this site.
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Full description from AST SpaceMobileAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Key Responsibilities
- ◆Design, develop, and maintain automation workflows and orchestration scripts executed within our own OSS platform, covering network operations, fault management, service assurance, reporting, and inventory
- ◆Own and grow the automation backlog - identify manual, error-prone, or repetitive operational processes as candidates for automation, estimate effort, and drive items through to production delivery
- ◆Design, implement, and maintain automated test suites that validate automation workflows under both nominal and fault/edge-case conditions
- ◆Execute test plans, document results, track defects, and drive resolution in collaboration with all involved internal teams
- ◆Produce clear test documentation of test plans, test cases, test reports, and coverage summaries
- ◆Cooperate with internal Service Assurance and Service Delivery teams by fostering knowledge transfer, gathering requirements, and jointly identifying next steps in developing new automated workflows and processes
- ◆Proactively identify automation failures, performance degradations, or reliability issues and drive root-cause analysis and remediation
- ◆Continuously improve automation reliability, coverage, and maintainability based on operational feedback and incident learnings
- ◆Act as first line contact and support line for internal Service Assurance and Service Delivery concerning OSS automated processes and workflows already introduced into production
- ◆Maintain clear, accurate documentation for all automation workflows introduced
Education
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, telecommunications or a related field — or equivalent professional experience.
Qualifications
- ✓A minimum of 3+ years of professional experience in automation engineering, test engineering, or a combined software/QA role, preferably in telecom, network operations, or OSS/BSS systems.
- ✓Proven experience designing and building automation workflows, orchestration scripts, or operational automation pipelines — not just test scripts
- ✓Solid proficiency in Python or any other scripting language and familiarity with modern test frameworks (e.g. pytest, Robot)
- ✓Familiarity with at least one workflow orchestration or BPM tool (e.g. Camunda, Apache Airflow, Ansible, or similar)
- ✓Ability to query and manipulate data in SQL and/or NoSQL databases
- ✓Strong command of test strategy design, test case development, test automation frameworks, and defect lifecycle management
- ✓Familiarity with telecom OSS concepts like FCAPS, TMF eTOM framework or similar operational support system concepts
- ✓Practical exposure to network operations workflows and/or service assurance processes
- ✓Working knowledge of NETCONF/YANG, SNMP, or TMF Open APIs as integration surfaces for automation workflows
- ✓Familiarity with OSS platforms, NMS/EMS systems, or network simulation tools used for test environment setup
- ✓Hands-on experience integrating automation with REST APIs and event-driven messaging systems (e.g. Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS)
- ✓Experience embedding quality gates and automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or equivalent)
- ✓Practical experience with monitoring and logging tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, or equivalent) for making automated workflows observable in production
- ✓Comfortable developing, deploying, and debugging automation in Linux
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
AST SpaceMobile is building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices based on our extensive IP and patent portfolio and designed for both commercial and government applications. Our engineers and space scientists are on a mission to eliminate the connectivity gaps faced by today’s five billion mobile subscribers and finally bring broadband to the billions who remain unconnected.
Position Overview
We are seeking an OSS Test & Automation Engineer to join the team responsible for developing our core network platform – OSS. In this role, you will act as the primary owner of OSS workflow automation development and test engineering. Your primary focus will be to build, test, document and maintain automation processes executed within the OSS platform - covering network operations, service assurance, reporting, and partner integration workflows. At the same time, you will tightly collaborate with internal Service Assurance and Service Delivery teams to gather requirements, transfer knowledge about the developed automation processes, and receive feedback about the required improvements and changes. You are not a pure QA resource since you are an automation developer who also ensures what is built is verifiably correct and operates as expected by the end users.
Soft Skills
- •Strong problem-solving mindset with a bias toward automation and operational efficiency
- •Collaborative and communicative — comfortable working in a globally distributed team
- •Ownership mentality - take responsibility for end-to-end reliability of systems under your care
- •Adaptable and self-directed, with the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment
- •Meticulous attention to detail in documentation, change management, and operational procedures
Technology Stack
- •Python (automation, scripting, test frameworks)
- •Camunda, Apache Airflow, Ansible, or equivalent BPM/orchestration tooling
- •Pytest, Robot Framework, or equivalent
- •Postman, requests library, or similar
- •GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, ArgoCD
- •Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, structured logging
- •REST, gRPC, Kafka, RabbitMQ, TMF Open APIs, NETCONF/YANG
- •Databases:
- •PostgreSQL / MySQL (SQL)
- •MongoDB, Cassandra, or equivalent (NoSQL)
- •InfluxDB or similar (Time-series DBs)
- •Docker, Kubernetes (working knowledge for deploying automation workloads)
- •Git (GitHub / GitLab)
- •Confluence, test case management tools (e.g. TestRail, Xray, or equivalent)